


your lips, my lips, apocalypse

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Faux-zombies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Doyoung and Taeyong play a game of escape the room.





	your lips, my lips, apocalypse

The building is under code red. The zombies are coming. The evil AI has trapped them in the infested room to watch the inferior human race—emotional, irrational, frail as paper—get torn to pieces by the feral monsters. “You are all going to die down here,” the voice through the intercom keeps repeating, “it’s only a matter of time.” The clock is counting down the game time—twelve minutes to go—and the time until the end of the world. Only they can save the planet from the virus and the ensuing zombie apocalypse, two puny interns at Umbrella Corporation who didn’t know what they signed up for.

One of whom is sitting on the dusty ground, beside a disemboweled model of the human torso, hugging his arms to his chest.

“Still no USB?”

Intern number 2 turns to stare down at the ball of human on the ground. “Listen,” he says exasperatedly, “I might have found it by now if you just decided to help me look.”

“I’m telling you. It’s no use.” Distressed, he clutches his head in both hands. “The end is nigh. We can’t contain them forever. They smell my blood—I mean my brains. This one has been staring at me like a delicious snack for the past five minutes.”

He points to one long-haired zombie behind the gate. It’s got a tangled mess of a black wig slung over a mannequin posed like it’s ready to lunge. A nightmarish looking face has been painted on. The model is dressed in blood-stained tatters. An orange light flashes about the zombie display area, simulating movement and motion, visuals complete with the animalistic snarling track being played in the background.

Intern number 2 rolls his eyes at his companion on the floor. One would have to have a hyperactive imagination to be scared of some assemblage of props like this.

“You think they want _your_ brains?” He mutters through a smirk, “You’ve barely used one brain cell since we came in.”

“What do you mean?! I got us through the first two rooms! I just hate this room, Doyoungie. The zombie screeching is getting on my nerves—is there no way to turn it off? And the AI won’t shut up. Every apocalyptic thing it says makes me want to die a little more.”

Doyoung sighs. “You’re scared, I get it.”

“Yeah. I am.” He grumbles, “Because you had to choose the most demonic room they offered. I don’t even like Resident Evil.”

“What, you’d rather have done the clown one?”

“Fuck no. But this isn’t any better. I hate it so much. God. I feel like once the timer gets to one minute it’ll start counting down, and then the gate will open or something will come in and—”

“This is an escape room, Taeyong, not a haunted house. I guarantee you there are no paid actors waiting to storm the room and tackle you to the ground.”

Taeyong lets out a quiet humph. “Still.” He looks around at the cryotanks full of floating zombie carcasses, looking like they’re moving in the water. The limbs on one of them floats just at the right angle to look like it’s pointing straight at him. Taeyong instinctively scoots back on the floor, knocking into a medical toolbox that has the meta prop label of “Do not touch”.

“This room is just no.” He gives his final verdict, “It’s too creepy.”

/

“What if they set it up wrong? _What pipes_? We’ve looked down every pipe-looking thing in the room and there’s nothing.”

Doyoung’s shaking out the blood soaked sheets on the cot to see if there are any clues written on it. “There’s no way they set it up wrong. The whole point of these games is that you _know_ there’s a way to escape, and you’re equipped with all you need to find your way out.” He turns around to look at Taeyong on the floor, in the dark, twirling their only light stick like a baton. “This room is only so big, are you really just going to give up?”

“Yeah. I can’t.”

Doyoung shakes his head. “Fine, suit yourself.”

“Hey—! Why are you taking my light?”

“Because.” _Duh_, he almost says. “I need it.”

Light confiscated, Taeyong shrinks back into a ball, wrapping his arms around his knees and sulking by himself by the wall.

“What should we have for dinner? Do you want ramen?”

“Hold on, I’m reading the clue again.”

“Or we can go for some barbeque.”

“‘…left clues down the pipes of the lab’…How are you hungry right now?”

“I'm not. I feel like I can throw up. But I’m just going to sit here and dream about when this awful thing is over.”

“Hey, what do we have in the room?” Doyoung moves the light away from the paper and back onto Taeyong, who squints at the brightness. His shadow behind him drags out long and thin.

Taeyong points to the cupboard above him. “Only thing we’ve found is the chain looking thing.”

“Then it has to be for something.”

“Are you sure this is meant to be a prop? It’s kinda stuck to the—oh.”

From below, Taeyong tugs the plastic chain hard enough, and it comes off of the metal cupboard it was attached to. On the end dangles a magnet.

“Wait—give that to me for a second.”

Doyoung sticks the chain down a pipe along the wall, and pulls it back out. When they reel it in, at the end of the magnet is attached a key ring. They look at each other dumbly.

“You’re a genius,” Taeyong smiles weakly.

“We literally could have done that ten minutes ago.” Doyoung facepalms.

“That’s not a USB though.”

“Can’t win too easily, I guess. But at least there’s a code for something. Hang on, I’m gonna try the lock in the other room.”

“WAIT—I’m coming.” Taeyong scrambles to his feet, bouncing after Doyoung’s swift strides. Like hell he’s going to sit in the zombie room alone.

/

Half way through trying combinations on the lock, the background music fades away, and the zombie screeching stops. It’s utterly silent for a few seconds. Taeyong adheres his entire body into Doyoung’s backside, pulling at the hem of his shirt.

“Why did they stop. What’s happening? Doyoung, I’m scared.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t trigger anything. Maybe time is almost up?”

“I don’t like this.”

Taeyong lets go of Doyoung’s shirt to wrap his arms around his waist. Doyoung doesn’t turn around, muttering numbers under his breath as his hands nimbly fiddle with the lock. Out of nowhere, the AI voice broadcasts another ominous line about the end of times. Taeyong’s arms _squeeze_ before he knows it, and he’s shaking his head fiercely with his face pressed into Doyoung’s back.

Doyoung almost keels over from how much Taeyong’s hair tickles his neck. As a reward for his goofing around, Taeyong gets his arms peeled off from around Doyoung’s middle.

“Stop it, you’re distracting.”

“What’re you even doing?”

“I’m forgetting combinations I already tried.”

Banned from interfering, Taeyong pouts. “Why are you boycotting me?” He says from behind him.

“I’m not boycotting you.”

Doyoung pulls the lock again. Doesn’t work. The tag on the key ring gave them three out of four digits of the password. Now all he had to do was try them in different orders and guess the last. They have enough time to figure it out—if this were actually the final step they needed before being able to escape.

Taeyong moves beside him. Doyoung feels his left hand being taken off the lock and grasped tightly in Taeyong’s own cold, clammy hand.

“Am I being a nuisance right now?” He hears.

“No, you’re not a nuisance.” He answers perfunctorily, shaking off Taeyong’s hand lightly so he can properly grip the lock. “But you need to let me do the work if you’re not going to help.”

Taeyong’s hand stings. It drops back down to his side, where he has no idea what to do with it. He has no idea what to do in this room right now with Doyoung not paying attention to him. All desire to play the game—to help him find a way to escape has left him. Taeyong didn’t know going into this that he would come to feel so emotionally drained from the terror this place is inflicting on him. Being trapped in darkness for forty five minutes, having to stand among the grotesque setup, listening to the brain melting dialogue playing over and over again in the speakers. He hates horror movies, no less having to be put into one. He’s not feeling okay. Doyoung isn’t helping.

“Whatever. You’re forgetting the whole point of this stupid game,” he says, but the tone in his voice has changed. The bitter resentment rings in the cramped space right as Doyoung gets the locker open.

Doyoung’s hand falters. He looks to his side.

“Taeyong?”

Taeyong doesn’t reply, just glares at him. Doyoung cocks his head and he doesn’t budge. After a moment, Doyoung lets out a curt sigh.

“Is this really the time to fight?” He points at the clock. Five minutes left.

“Why did we come out today? So you can ignore me?”

“Why did you come if you weren’t going to play?”

Taeyong puts his hands on his hips. “_You_ said you wanted to _de_-stress, because Ohh finals is hurting your head so much, yet all you’ve done is diligently burn more brain cells.”

Doyoung’s eyes go wide. “Well what did you expect, suggesting we do escape?”

“I don’t know? That we’d spend time together and have fun? You’re stressing me out even more.”

Doyoung turns around to fully face him, bringing the light with him. In the incandescent glow, Taeyong’s brows are knitted and he looks deathly pale. His face is marred by a frown. He’s chewing on his nail anxiously. Doyoung pulls his hand away from his mouth by habit. Taeyong catches his hand on the way down, doesn’t let go.

Taeyong can’t understand. “It’s exhausting to be with you when you’re taking things way too seriously. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Doyoung, also, can’t understand. “What’s the point in coming here if you didn’t intend on trying?”

“I’m trying my best! I’m just freaked out right now and want you to hold my hand! Is that so much to ask for?”

“Yong. We spent thirty dollars on this game.” Doyoung squeezes their hands, “I don’t want to lose.”

Taeyong feels bad, to a certain extent. Doyoung has a point. Plus, he should have known his competitive boyfriend would go all in with challenges like this. Their definitions of “unwind” are polar opposites, just like they are in a lot of ways. But they’ve compromised for each other countless times before.

“Forget this dumb game?” Taeyong pleads, taking back the biting edge from his voice. “I know you’re a tryhard, but you’re—you’re trying too hard, okay? Are you even having fun?”

“I am. Trying hard _is_ the fun.”

“Well, I’m not having fun.”

Doyoung’s lips pull into a thin line. His shoulders sink down as he lets out a long breath.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re not feeling well. But that’s why I’m trying to get us out sooner.”

“Just—forget it, please? It’ll be over soon. Just come sit with me.”

“Hang on—”

He reaches into the locker he so assiduously opened and pulls out a gun. It’s not the USB they need, either. On the gun, there’s another mechanic that will take them even more time to figure out, time that they didn’t have.

Taeyong asks quietly. “Does it do anything?”

“Yeah, I’m sure it does. But it’s fine. Let’s just sit.”

“You’re done, too?”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

They sit on the floor by the exit. Doyoung wraps an arm around Taeyong’s shoulders.

Taeyong’s voice is barely louder than a whisper. “Thanks for paying attention to me.”

Doyoung swipes Taeyong’s nose with a knuckle. “Silly.”

Even immersed in the mindset of the game, Doyoung hasn’t forgotten about his priorities.

“Will you kiss me?”

Doyoung turns to Taeyong’s waiting lips. He drops the light by their feet and cups Taeyong’s cheek in one hand. Their lips meet stiffly and tentatively a few times, Doyoung nibbling on Taeyong’s lip to distract him, calm him down. Taeyong opens up, and then they’re truly melding together, deepening their kiss, tilting their heads in synchronized motion. Doyoung closes his eyes. Taeyong closes his eyes, and remembers how much he loves his boyfriend. Suddenly, in the quiet, they could be anywhere, somewhere fitting for the sweet kiss they’re sharing, somewhere they could sit and kiss and run their fingers through each other’s hair and would never have to stop.

Suddenly, Doyoung’s eyes open, and he starts laughing half way through.

Taeyong pulls apart, saliva glistening on his lip. “What?”

“I had the thought that we were putting on a show for the zombies.”

Taeyong starts laughing too. All of a sudden, staring at the zombies across the gate is more comical than terrifying. “Right? This is utterly unsexy,” he says as he pulls him back in.

“But it’s less scary, right?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Their mouths softly mash together again. They get really into the kiss. It’s almost enough to make Taeyong forget where they are, but not quite. When they pull apart, the AI says something especially creepy, and Taeyong shivers.

/

Satisfied, he leans his head on Doyoung’s shoulder.

“If the end of the world ever came, and we were both trapped in a room waiting to die to zombies, would you kiss me like this one last time before we both surrender?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Taeyong scowls up at him. “Why.”

“Because I wouldn’t surrender. I’d fight to keep us alive.”

Taeyong thinks about how much his boyfriend is a tryhard. How perfectionist he can get with his papers. How he doesn’t play video games because he hates being bad at it and losing. How he would flip the zombie room upside down to find a hint and never give up. Then he thinks about how Doyoung can’t be fucked to do a lot of things, like get up off the bed to grab his own coffee, and how there are more things he can’t be fucked to do than there are that he can. Taeyong thinks Doyoung would live through a zombie apocalypse, just because life mattered so much to him that he had no choice but to sigh and accept the fact that he does in fact give a shit enough to fight.

It’s what Taeyong loves about him, after all. That he is the opposite of himself, who is afraid of so many things, who couldn’t ever find a reason to give his best in anything. That he brought Taeyong out of insouciance, made him see purpose, gave him a reason, drove him on.

“I’d die first in a zombie apocalypse because I’d just give up.”

“You’re not allowed to,” Doyoung whispers, planting a kiss to Taeyong’s temple. “I won’t let you.”

“If I live…” Taeyong trails on. He’s not talking about the apocalypse anymore. “If I live, it’ll all be thanks to you.”

They sit with their hands intertwined. His head on Doyoung’s shoulder, Taeyong blissfully closes his eyes and drowns out the rest of the room. In minutes, the escape room staff finds them like this and shows them how to operate the rest of the room. They were so close, might have made it out if both of them tried harder, but it doesn’t matter because Taeyong has regained the color in his lips and is smiling with them.

They take photos in the photo op corner standing beneath a moving, mechanical dragon, holding up signs they found in the prop basket. Taeyong’s says “GG EZ”, Doyoung’s says “Nobody listened to me”. 

/

“So…ramen?” He asks, a hand on the wheel.

“I can’t eat junk right now. My body feels too heavy afterwards, and I have to stay awake later to write my paper.”

“What do you want to eat then?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of salad.”

“We’ve had five thousand years to perfect cuisine and you want a salad?”

“Not everyone has a metabolism that can turn trash into nutrition.”

“Implying I eat trash, huh? We’re not having salad for dinner.”

“No one said you had to have it too. Just go somewhere with salad on the menu.”

“That greatly limits my range of choices, Doyoung.”

“Too bad. Or I just won’t eat. I’ll watch you eat.”

“No. Eat.”

“Then salad.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Whatever. Fighting over dinner is really just excessive. They can meet somewhere in the middle.

end

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to [egg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vwmn) and [kerm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends) for making this a real thing ♡♡  
I wrote this in a few hours  
I love domestic dotae and I firmly believe taeyong would be the first to d*e in a zombie apocalypse but there's also a chance of doyoung just going "just take me"   
Title from apocalypse - cigarettes after sex ♡
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/snap_spark)


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